Thursday 10 September 2009

Why no shrieeeking?

Where are the rightwing concern trolls, shrieeeking about the rights of female victims oppressed by bad men following fundamentalist religious doctrine?

What about these women - with their heads modestly covered with shawls, long garments covering their arms and legs, living in fear that they will be outcast if their husbands or fathers find out that they have been sexually assaulted by some of the men in their community.

"There was always talk about those things happening here; there was a woman who said so, but no one believed her." …

…religious orthodoxy is emphatic that women must be virgins at marriage. This is an added worry for the victims.

These crimes – the physical and sexual abuse of women and girls - have occurred in a remote village, governed by archaic fundamentalist religious laws.

Nonetheless, rightwing conservative islamophobes like Kathy Shaidle, Blazing Cat Fur, Kate MacMillan, Mark Steyn won't be climbing the barricades, howling at the outrage. They would direct their fury at targets that are politically and ideologically selected for the opportunity to stir up a frenzy against “teh moozlims”.

These crimes have been unfolding in a Mennonite community in Manitoba - Bolivia.

“The Mennonites are a Protestant group that fled religious persecution in 19th-century Europe to create isolated communities in America and elsewhere. Estimates suggest there are some 1.5 million worldwide. They follow the teachings of Menno Simons, a 16th-century radical Dutch Protestant reformist leader. Most are second- or third-generation Dutch; they reject wealth and power and to a certain extent the trappings of modern life. When North America modernised too much for their taste, some fled south to the less developed but fertile lands of Central and South America. Many went to Mexico in the early 1920s, where they were granted religious freedoms. But when they were stripped of some of those privileges in the late 30s and early 40s, some went even further south, to Bolivia's eastern lowlands and neighbouring Paraguay.

Since then, they have carved settlements out of the jungle. Now, about 50,000 of them live there in farming communities. Families tend to be large, often with six to 12 children. The most orthodox Mennonite colonies eschew all forms of modernity, from rubber tyres to electricity.

Mennonites traditionally handle crime and punishment themselves. But not this time. "This was way too big to deal with," says Johann Klassen, a community elder. "That is why we handed these people to the Bolivian authorities. We don't want them back."

So, don’t expect news items about covert sexual violence directed towards women in a christian fundamentalist community to cause any shrieeeking over at the principle-challenged Blogging Tories. That’s not really of interest or any concern to them.

1 comment:

Bina said...

I guess the vile oppressor being a Christian makes this sort of thing all right with the Blogging Suppositories, then?

I bet it's not okay with Evo Morales.

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